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Zoals een ieder inmiddels al wel zal weten is gisteren naar buiten gekomen dat op de computer van voormalig officier van justitie J. Tonino kinderporno is aangetroffen. Hoofdofficier van justitie L. de Wit vertelde gisteravond in het programma van Peter de Vries dat deze afbeeldingen slechts als “bijvangst” moeten worden beschouwd en er dientengevolge geen strafbare feiten zijn gepleegd. Er werd gezegd dat Tonino onbedoeld en onbewust de plaatjes had gedownload. Er daar wringt hem nu juist de schoen. Drijfzand ging op onderzoek uit en en vond belastend materiaal…

Op 5 augustus 2004 deed de rechtbank van Groningen een opvallende uitspraak. Een 40-jarige man werd veroordeeld voor het ‘per ongeluk’ downloaden van kinderporno. Ter illustratie, de man had 33 kinderpornoplaatjes, op een totaal van 140.000 (sex)afbeeldingen. Het argument dat de verdachte geen opzet had op het bezit werd door de officier van justitie terzijde geschoven via het zgn voorwaardelijk opzet begrip, wat zoveel inhoudt dat hij “had kunnen en moeten weten dat de kans bestond” dat hij de plaatjes zou downloaden. Een erg vergaande oprekking van de strafbaarheid dus. (zie hier voor een duidelijke uitleg)

Deze problematiek kreeg vorige week een impuls toen de rechtbank in Breda een vergelijkbare uitspraak deed. Ook in dit geval werd het ‘toevallig’ downloaden van kinderporno bestraft vanuit de visie dat een gebruiker van het internet nu eenmaal dient te beseffen dat hij de kans loopt dit materiaal te downloaden en hij daarvoor strafbaar gesteld kan worden. Het Openbaar Ministerie kiest dus duidelijk voor één lijn en een harde aanpak:

“Per ongeluk kinderporno gedownload? Dat had je vooraf maar moeten bedenken!”

Echter, nu er plotseling een (voormalig) collega het onderwerp is van dezelfde discussie lijkt het OM opeens een heel andere mening toegedaan. “Onbedoeld en onbewust” dienen in dit geval wel serieus genomen te worden, het arme schaap Tonino wist immers niet beter. Deze aanpak stinkt en neigt ten zeerste naar willekeur of – als we eens niet in juridische termen spreken – vriendjespolitiek.

Waarom is het OM keihard in het aanpakken van de gewone man maar wordt een misstap van één van haar eigen mensen afgedaan als niet relevant? Wanneer ik de advocaat van een van de veroordeelden in de aangegeven zaken zou zijn zou ik het wel weten: snel in hoger beroep en daar eens even heel erg het vervolgingsbeleid aan de kaak stellen!

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Een landelijke actiegroep mag zaterdagavond tijdens de aankomst van de Amerikaanse president Bush op vliegveld Maastricht Aachen Airport een lawaaidemonstratie houden. Loco-burgemeester C. Henssen van Beek heeft daartoe vrijdagochtend de vergunning verleend, meldde een woordvoerster van de gemeente.

Wel is de demonstratie aan strikte voorwaarden gebonden. Zo begeleidt een politie-escorte de demonstranten per bus naar het vliegveld en mogen er hooguit honderd demonstranten mee. Ook worden ze vooraf gescreend en in de bus gefouilleerd.

Zoals GeenStijl het mooi weet te zeggen: Slaan op potten en pannen en schreeuwen als een stel bosmongeaulen om te bewijzen dat jij slim bent en Bush dom is. Lang leve het poldermodel!

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The loss by General Motors and Ford Motor of their investment-grade ratings has pushed two of corporate America’s biggest borrowers into the ranks of junk bonds and rattled the financial markets with the message that the remaining two U.S.-owned automakers have sunk to their lowest point yet.

The downgrade Thursday by Standard & Poor’s, the credit agency, reflected the rising pessimism about the kinds of vehicles GM and Ford have placed at the center of their company strategies, as well as worries that these two automakers may not emerge any time soon from their financial troubles.

S&P said it was particularly concerned about declining sales of the large sport utility vehicles that Ford and GM depend on for profits, particularly as Japanese automakers step up their interest in the pickup market and push GM and Ford even further into a corner.

The downgrades reduce the number of ways the automakers can raise money and could make it more expensive for them to borrow in the future. But for now they are likely to use other ways of financing their operations besides issuing bonds. It also suggests, according to many financial experts, that the companies’ pension funds pose a greater risk of failure than generally acknowledged.

The announcement set off a selling spree in the corporate bond market. The rating cut to below investment grade begins a process of adjustment that could ripple through, and roil, the fixed-income markets for weeks, analysts said.

“It was a Richter-scale event,” Edward Marrinan, head investment-grade strategist at J.P. Morgan, said from the trading floor soon after the announcement. “The market is selling off violently. The downgrade was no surprise, but the timing of it was and has caught the market on the hop.”

Now, investors like pension funds that prefer investment-grade bonds or are restricted to such securities will sell their GM and Ford bonds to those that invest in high-yield or junk bonds and to other investors, including hedge funds, that like so-called distressed securities.

With about $292 billion in outstanding GM bonds and $161 billion in Ford bonds, the potential redistribution is titantic. How disruptive the process will be for the corporate bond and high-yield bond markets will not be known immediately. But there certainly will be some indigestion.

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The Bush administration today issued rules that could open up as many as 58.5 million acres of U.S. forestland to road building, logging, mining and other commercial purposes, clearing the last remnants of a ban imposed in 2001.

The U.S. Forest Service can begin allowing 34.3 million acres of national lands to be opened to road building as early as next week, and the rule gives state governors the option to request use for an additional 24.2 million acres. The Agriculture Department said states have 18 months to protest the changes.

The new rule reverses a regulation passed under President Bill Clinton that barred road building on about 30 percent of the roughly 192 million acres of forest and grassland managed by the Forest Service. A federal court ruled against the Clinton ban in 2001, the same year it was issued. Critics claim the new rule puts business interests ahead of the environment.

“The Bush administration is once again selling out to the logging and timber industry instead of siding with the American people, who want to protect our last wild forests,” said Deb Callahan, president of the League of Conservation Voters, a nonprofit group that promotes pro-environment laws and policies.

Revenge of the Brick

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From the unthinkable to the unmentionable, it’s hard to believe what we leave behind. Even today, people will try to get just about anything past airport security.

So far, the National Transportation Safety Administration has intercepted more than 18 million items from travelers since February 2002, with seven million collected just last year.

“It makes me wonder what goes through people’s minds,” says Marybeth Enggren of Pennsylvania’s Bureau of Surplus Operations. Enggren sees these items every day as the result of a program set up by the NTSA to dispose of them.

After passengers “voluntarily surrender” restricted items at airport security stations, the NTSA distributes them to several state surplus offices. Items are then sorted and sold to the public at a government warehouse, usually in bulk.

But now, Pennsylvania is one of a few states allowing you to buy back what you left behind on eBay. If you can find it among their boxes up for auction. Auction items range from 50 pounds of utensils to 100 pocketknives, from 40 pounds of nail scissors to a purple sombrero.

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As many of you are aware, the Bush administration has imposed many restrictions upon the use of US foreign aid money being used to combat the spread of HIV. (I won’t go into all of the things here that the administration tries to get recieving countries and organizations abide by in order to revieve funds, however keep in mind that it is happening and it is hurting the global fight against HIV/AIDS)

For the most part, foreign countries have been willing to abide by these stipulations because they desperately need the funding. But yesterday Brazil was the first country to tell the Bush administration to keep their fucking money, they could do things better without it.

As a bit of background, Brazil has for years been the global model for the prevention of HIV spread. Here is what they are doing right (and what the Bush administration dislikes):

1. The provide free condoms to the population
2. They skirt patent laws and produce generic anti-retroviral drugs instead of buying them from (US) companies
3. The distribute these drugs free of charge to anyone diagnosed with HIV
4. They maintain an open relationship with prostitutes, homosexual men, intravenous-drug users and other high-risk groups and work with them in order to reduce the spread of HIV
5. Prostitution is legal there and is regulated by the government

All of these things have led to only 700,000 becoming infected in the country (representing .6% of the population). This is roughly 1/2 of the projected HIV infection rate previously calculated for the year 2005. Obvously they’re doing something right.
So why did Brazil refuse the aid? Before I read the story I just assumed it was going to be because of condom distribution, or possibly the patent law violations. But no it wasn’t because of either of these. Let me cut to a press release I got from the CFAR (Center For AIDS Research) mailing list.

The Bush Administration’s grant would have imposed scientifically unverifiable, ideological clauses, such as one that asks the country to officially condemn prostitution. Signing such a clause would have impeded AIDS interventions within Brazil, which orchestrates open relationships with prostitutes, homosexual men, intravenous-drug users and other high-risk groups in order to fight the pandemic.
“It is a simple fact that in order fight AIDS, it’s crucial to work with the populations that face the greatest risk. It would be a gross human rights violation to deny them life-saving assistance based on moral grounds.” said Atila Roque, Executive Director of ActionAid USA, and himself a Brazilian.

[..]

So again why is REJECTING money for the fight against HIV important?

There are two reasons:
Most importantly it allows Brazil to continue their science-based prevention program rather than implementing the ideological-based, Bush administration sponsored, program.
Secondly, it puts more pressure on the Bush administration in terms continuing their “faith-based” HIV prevention funding.
Oh, and don’t worry, the Brazilian people will be cared for without the US funds (from Yahoo News this time):

Brazil can afford to turn down the Bush dollars. Unlike some poorer countries, it has an anti-AIDS program that is largely self-financed, and less than 2 percent of its money comes directly from the U.S. government.

[..]

“We can’t control HIV with principles that are … theological, fundamentalist and Shiite,” said Pedro Chequer, director of Brazil’s AIDS program.

Links:

Yahoo Article
Reuters Article
Christian Science Monitor on Brazillian drug manufacturing

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When Leonardo’s da Vinci’s pupils were stuck for inspiration he advised them to make a study of a crack in the wall, and it’s true that when you spend time engaging your imagination with such a crack, all sorts of possibilities and new worlds may begin to appear…

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When we identify why we really went to war – not the cover reasons or the rebranded reasons, freedom and democracy, but the real reasons – then we can become more effective anti-war activists. The most effective and strategic way to stop this occupation and prevent future wars is to deny the people who wage these wars their spoils – to make war unprofitable. And we can’t do that unless we effectively identify the goals of war.

When I was in Iraq a year ago trying to answer that question, one of the most effective ways I found to do that was to follow the bulldozers and construction machinery. I was in Iraq to research the so-called reconstruction. And what struck me most was the absence of reconstruction machinery, of cranes and bulldozers, in downtown Baghdad. I expected to see reconstruction all over the place.

I saw bulldozers in military bases. I saw bulldozers in the Green Zone, where a huge amount of construction was going on, building up Bechtel’s headquarters and getting the new U.S. embassy ready. There was also a ton of construction going on at all of the U.S. military bases. But, on the streets of Baghdad, the former ministry buildings are absolutely untouched. They hadn’t even cleared away the rubble, let alone started the reconstruction process.

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The US movie industry has made good its promise to name Brits Kevin Reid and Ian Hawthorne in its legal action against the users of their bds-palace.co.uk website, which links to BitTorrent-hosted content.

Last month, Reid formally received a summons to appear before the US District Court of New Jersey, where MPAA members Paramount, Warner, Universal and 20th Century Fox are attempting to identify and therefore sue individuals they alleged shared their film and TV content without authorisation.

The site’s owners claim they were told they might have to pay $150m in damages if they fail to settle. Settlement would cost them a mere $7m, they say.

The summons follows demands made in March this year by the studios’ lawyer, Matthew J Oppenheim a partner with Washington DC law firm Jenner & Block, that Reid and Hawthorne hand over the identities of the alleged copyright infringers. If they failed to do so, Oppenheim threatened, they would too would be named in the studios’ lawsuit.

That has now happened, though it’s arguably of little help to Hollywood. US law does not reach as far as the UK, and even if the US Court views Reid and Hawthorne’s refusal to answer the summons in a harsh light, there’s little it can do about it. Should the two Brits visit New Jersey, they might possibly run into trouble, but they may well be free to visit other states of the Union safe from harassment from Motion Picture Ass. of America-member lawyers.

Reid claims Oppenheim “made it quite clear that he felt that if our Prime Minister could be persuaded to back his country in the Gulf War, then there was no doubting that American law would prevail in the UK”. Fortunately, our courts tend to be a little less in awe of our transatlantic cousins than our glorious leader does.

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De Aivd zegt dat er terroristentaps zijn gewist inzake het onderzoek naar de Hofstadgroep: de dienst zat er volgens eigen zeggen al jaren bovenop, maar tijdens de voorbereidingen op de moord op Van Gogh hadden ze een telkens vrije dag, danwel werden er taps gewist. Feit is dat overheidsdiensten werken met tapkamers van het Israelische Infosys (vroeger Comverse geheten). Deze Infosys-tapmachines werken met zogenaamde WORM-disken: Write Once Read Many, dit zijn opto-magnetische disken die helemaal niet gewist kunnen worden, te vergelijken met een cd-r. Volgens experts waar GeenStijl mee sprak is het aperte onzin dat (telefoon)gesprekken zomaar gewist of overschreven kunnen worden.

In sommige gevallen wordt gebruikt gemaakt van optische disken die wel wisbaar zijn, maar dan alleen in zijn geheel, waarbij het niet mogelijk is om bepaalde delen te bewaren en andere delen te wissen, dus dan raak je ook relevante zaken kwijt. Lopende een onderzoek worden ze dus never nooit niet gewist. En waar zijn dan de transcripten?

Zoals in veel van dit soort technische zaken: geen kamerlid eist nu eens opheldering naar de technische middelen waarmee de Aivd werkt, hoe er gewist is en welke apparatuur men gebruikt. Dit weten is de enige manier om eens echt duidelijkheid te krijgen. Men is wel tevreden met een enkele alinea van Remkes die oud nieuws herhaalt terwijl twee Aivd-bazen elkaar tegenspreken en de geloofwaardigheid van zowel Remkes als de Aivd subzero is. Hoogste tijd voor een echt onderzoek naar de gereedschappen van de Aivd. Draai de rollen om, laat ze maar bewijzen dat het wel goed is gegaan.

Kom maar op met de datasheets en specs van de apparatuur en de gevolgde procedures. Duidelijkheid over procedures en apparatuur schaadt geen enkele geheime operatie, sterker nog, het is in het landsbelang dat de Aivd een vorm van algemeen vertrouwen behoudt. Kom maarrr.

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Een nog op te richten stichting gaat zich sterk maken om voor burgers de schade te claimen die zij hebben geleden vanwege de invoering van een te dure euro. Aanleiding is de bekendmaking vorige week van De Nederlandsche Bank en minister Zalm (Financiën), dat bij de omwisseling naar de euro in 2002 de gulden te laag was ingezet.

Dat betekent feitelijk dat mensen toen minder euro’s voor hun guldens hebben ontvangen. De overheid erkende een wisselverlies van 5 tot 10 procent. Maar de nieuwe stichting stelt dat het verlies kan oplopen tot 20 procent.

Initiatiefnemers zijn twee mannen uit Rijswijk en Voorburg, die “kokend van woede de stoute schoenen hebben aangetrokken”, zo meldde het persbericht op hun website www.wisselverlies.org . Daar kunnen belangstellenden zich ook aanmelden.

da’s slim, zeg – 50 euro vragen voor lidmaatschap van een stichting waar je bij voorbaat al van weet dat het toch nooit wat oplevert. Zo te zien halen de oprichters als enige hun verlies er wel uit..

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The prize for the first successful hack, if there is one, is a Microsoft Xbox console package. In order for prize to be awarded, the hacker must send an email with the details of the hack to prizes@hackiis6.com and include the following:

1. Date and time of hack success
2. Legal name of hacker and/or team
3. Email address of contact person
4. Description of hack sufficient to verify that it took place
5. Description of how hack was accomplished

If the bounty is an Xbox, that means that IIS6 security is robust enough to protect assets worth up to about $200.

(I tried to hack into it and this stupid paperclip keeps getting in the way..” I looks like you’re trying to hack a Website…”)

If nmap fingerprinted the OS right, this IIS6 box is behind a Nokia IPSO. So this Windows zealot is hiding his IIS6 box behind a big, bad ass, UNIX gatekeeper.

“Come to our site, give us free publicity, do something that likely you are the only one in the world that knows how to do and then teach us how to do it. If you do, there’s a console game in it for you! Wouldn’t you rather have a console game than the tens of thousands of dollars you could sell this information for?” The point of these cute little contests with their cracker jack box prizes isn’t to find out if there are exploits floating around in the wild. The point is to find out if any exploits have become so prevalent that someone would cash them in for a secret decoder ring. If not, they can hang their shingle saying, “Challenge still unhacked after foo months!” while those of us in the trenches scoff and continue our due diligence.